United Kingdom Books

How did the Victorian woman cope with the image of herself as a writer?
What were the constraints on female friendships in a world centered on the preeminence of the husband?
How significant for an ambitious woman were her politics about men?
At the heart of the book is a friendship between two women: Jane Carlyle, and the novelist Geraldine Jewsbury. But it was a difficult friendship; and in its difficulty lies much that is illuminating: about 19th century domestic ideology: about writing for a market, and female fame and about the complex ambivalences between women.
Examining aspects of their lives, writing, and relationships, alongside those two other writers...Felicia Hermans and Geraldine's sister, Maria Jane...Norma Clarke provides a subtle and illuminating discussion of the possibilities that were open to women in the Victorian age.

I was honored by having Bob Vitalis teach me a class while I was at the University of Pennsylvania, and was always struck by his engaging ideas and unconventional teaching style. Overcoming several obstacles to actually get the information to write this book in the first place, Vitalis has finally achieved what many would consider an impossible feat: An honest look at the history of the American-Saudi relationship. Here's to the hope that future students of his will be as inspired by his ideas as I was.

very enjoyable boo

Based on extensive excavations in the 1980s and 1990s, this is a vivid reconstruction of a medieval siege. More than that, it relates the special problems involved when siege warfare involves the digging of mines underneath castle walls in an attempt to bring them down. In this example, the Irish rebels sought (eventually with success) to undermine the castle walls while the English defenders dug numerous counter-mines in an attempt to stop the besieging miners. Wiggins demonstrates with photos, clear diagrams, and vivid text what the excavation record today tells us of these military methods of more than four centuries ago. We learn that even a siege of mere weeks, such as this one, usually cost many lives. He shows how military engineers relied on the available technology of the time (siege miners were often miners in real life and used the same techniques) as each side sought to bring the siege to a successful conclusion---naturally differing on what that meant!

When I last visited Ireland in 1990, none of this excavation work had been done. You could only see the outside walls of the castle by the river, and could not get inside. The work described here was done as part of a long process of clearing modern buildings to make the Limerick castle an educational tourist site. Based on this volume, I very much want to go back and see the remains of the siege mines and counter-mines which only rarely survive into modern times. After reading this interesting study, you will want to go see the site as well.

I found this book to be a real eye-opener with respect to all the facets of the this truly magnificent species.

Extremely well written and thought provoking - especially the references to ancient saint cells.

First rate account of the history of Anglo Saxon origin.

Most research on opium during the nineteenth century has focused either on Britain or China. A good deal has been written on opium usage in Britain, as well as moral and medical attitudes towards the substance, and the history of Anglo-Chinese political and economic relationships generally give a prominent place to opium and its wars. Britain and China were primarily consumers during the century, and until late on, most of the drug came from India. By the 1890s, more poppies were being grown in China and the Middle East, and the market share enjoyed by Indian producers was being challenged.

Paul C. Winther's decision to concentrate his research on India is thus to be applauded, as is his exposition of debates about the value of opium as a protective and possible cure for cases of malaria. As he points out, the "malaria" diagnosis during his period was vague, and included many fevers that were subsequently differentiated, on the basis of subtly different clinical courses and a variety of specific causative agents. The malaria and opium nexus is consequently extremely tenuous, and nineteenth-century judgments about the drug's role in treating fevers were a heady mix of moral, economic, and psychological factors.

For readers like myself with a vested interest in his particular theme, Winther has much to offer. He has read widely and offers full descriptions of a number of works relevant to the topic. Almost half of the book is devoted to the evidence collected by the 1894 Royal Commission on Opium. He shows how the seven volumes of evidence and conclusions were collected and analysed, concentrating especially on the key medical member of the Commission, Sir William Roberts, a prominent Manchester physician. The Commission took evidence from a wide variety of witnesses, British as well as Indian, and they heard an equally wide variety of opinion, about the extent of opium use in India, as well as its medical value. Given the Government of India's need for the revenues from the drug, both as a source of export income and as a tidy profit from home sales (the Government controlled most production), the Committee's recommendation that the opium trade be continued is hardly surprising. Whether the Committee was convened simply to pacify the increasingly vocal activities of the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade is another matter.

Winther implies that there was collusion and deliberate selection of testimony favourable to the economic interests of the Government of India. The evidence, as presented here, is less compelling. Roberts certainly interpreted the evidence with which he had been presented to conclude that the medical value of opium was such that a prohibition on its sale (and export) would be unjustified. In addition, he drew on two earlier studies that purported to demonstrate the value of opium as an effective drug against malaria. Using hindsight, it is easy for Winther to show that these clinical studies were rather inconclusive and faulty. In his eagerness to condemn Roberts, Winther uses modern criteria of clinical evaluation, and at one point castigates Roberts for not being aware of Ronald Ross's researches on the mode of transmission of malaria. Given the fact that Roberts was writing two years before Ross published anything on the subject, this is historical hindsight with a vengeance.

Winther's study is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the Indian dimension of opium production and use. Its value to students of the history of malaria is less clear. He has uncovered some salient debates on the relative merits of opium and quinine in cases of "fever," but his trawling of the literature on fevers in nineteenth-century India is selective, and opium featured much less in this literature that an uncritical reading of this monograph would suggest.

This collection contains some superb articles on Anglo-Norman warfare, including three of John Gillingham's masterpieces. It does require a little background to appreciate these articles, which were really written for professional historians rather than general readers, but not too much. If you've read Verbruggen and Smail, this is a good next place to go (especially if read in combination with some contemporary chronicles). ---Prof. Clifford J. Rogers

For people just getting interested in this period of British History, this is an excellent work. The Anglo-Saxon period was a time of turbulent upheaval and change in Britain, and Fisher provides riveting accounts of the conquests of Britain by the Anglo-Saxons, then the coming age of the Normans. The books is focused on the various parts of how Britain evolved, how the warrior bands that ruled the lands were ultimately forged into a nation, influenced by kings and church.
Fish is the lecturer (professor to the Yanks!!) at the University of Cambridge, and brings to bear his talents in this concise, rather straightforward work, making it one of the best books on this period for the general reader looking for answers.

There are few primary sources for early British history that can be accessed by the interested lay person. Such sources are often too obscure or fragmentary for the general reader to either discover or understand in context. Further, many of the texts are in archaic languages closed to all but the serious scholar. Fortunately, Anne Savage's beautifully illustrated and faithfully translated "Anglo Saxon Chronicles" is available to draw back the curtain on the mesmerizing journals kept by Christian monks on early British history. These journals are written in vernacular Old English and are wonderfully translated by Ms Savage. The text is accompanied by illustrations of buildings and artifacts dating to the period covered by the chronicles and by explanatory sections which provide historical background to the monk's journals. If you're interested in this period of history, Ms. Savage's work is a compelling introduction to an era for which few primary sources survive. Highly recommended.